Be celibate or leave the priesthood, pope tells gay priests

Pope Francis leads a special audience with members of a volunteers association from Sardinia island in Paul VI hall at the Vatican on 30 November 2018.
File Photo/Reuters/Max Rossi

By Philip Pullella | Reuters

VATICAN CITY, 2 December 2018

Men with deep-rooted homosexual tendencies should not be admitted to the Catholic clergy, and it would be better for priests who are actively gay to leave rather than lead a double life, Pope Francis says in a new book.

While he has previously spoken of the need for better screening of candidates for the religious life, his comments suggesting that priests who cannot keep their vows of celibacy should leave are some of his clearest to date.

Francis made the comments in a book-length interview with Spanish priest Fernando Prado called “The Strength of Vocation”, in which he discusses the challenges of being a priest or nun today.

Francis said in the book that homosexuality in the Church “is something that worries me”. It is due to be published this week in several languages. An advance copy of the Italian version was made available to Reuters.

“The question of homosexuality is a very serious one,” he said, adding that those entrusted with training men to be priests must be certain that candidates are “humanly and emotionally mature” before they can be ordained.

This also applied to women who wanted to enter female religious communities to become nuns. In the Catholic Church, priests, nuns and monks all take vows of celibacy.

The Church teaches that homosexual tendencies are not sinful in themselves, but homosexual acts are.

Francis said there was “no room for this” in the lives of priests and nuns, adding that the Church had to be “demanding” in choosing candidates for what is known as the consecrated life.

“For this reason, the Church urges that persons with this rooted tendency not be accepted into (priestly) ministry or consecrated life,” he said.

Better to Leave

He urged homosexuals who are already priests or nuns to be celibate and responsible to avoid creating scandal. “It is better that they leave the priesthood or the consecrated life rather than live a double life,” he said.

The interview was conducted in mid-August. Less than two weeks later, on 26 August, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, the Vatican’s former ambassador to the Vatican, threw the Church into turmoil with a bombshell statement against the pope and Vatican officials.

Vigano said a “homosexual network” existed in the Vatican, whose members helped promote each other’s careers in the Church.

He also accused the pope of having ignored alleged sexual misconduct with adult male seminarians by former American cardinal Theodore McCarrick, 88.

The Vatican said Vigano’s accusations were riddled with “calumny and defamation”.

The Catholic Church has been haunted for more than two decades by evidence of thousands of cases of sexual abuse of minors by clergy around the world, in countries ranging from the United States to Australia, Ireland, Belgium, Germany and Chile.

In July, McCarrick became the first cardinal to resign in nearly 100 years after US Church officials said allegations made in a separate investigation that he had sexually abused a 16-year-old boy almost 50 years ago were credible and substantiated.

McCarrick has said he had no recollection of the alleged abuse of the minor, but has not commented on the allegations of misconduct with the seminarians, which allegedly took place decades ago.

Comments

There is one comment so far.

Your Holiness Pope Francis, that’s bringing discipline in the Catholic world. That’s very good. You are living the the life what you preach.

There are some stories of Tibetan lamas abusing their power and position. Some lamas have now been charged with sexual abusing multiple women.

Since there’s no obligation to be a monk, those seeking to live a layman’s life should come forward and leave their monkhood.

Tibetans should bring this awareness within the society, particularly in the monasteries, so that the the rest of the monks doesn’t have to face the unnecessary labelling for mistakes of a few lamas or monks.